


There’s a Hole That You Fill

by kaulayau



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artificial Intelligence, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst and Feels, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, so basically this is ‘Her’ (2016) dir. Spike Jonze my dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 07:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15747270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaulayau/pseuds/kaulayau
Summary: Sorry I can’t take your touch.





	There’s a Hole That You Fill

**Author's Note:**

> i’m gonna post the last few chapters of kmj in bulk but in the meantime 
> 
> here!!
> 
> the title and summary are both from the new(!!) mitski be the cowboy song, a pearl
> 
> thanks for reading my dude

Markus never met his father, but he can feel the weight of Carl Manfred’s legacy stand over his head. _This belonged to him,_  they told him.  _This is his money. This is his house. This is his family. And this is your portion. Take it and share it._ And he knows that, in this regard — he’s not going to be able to do any of that.

* * *

He sits at the shoreline. The summer’s nice here. Quiet, but teeming with outside noise. Peaceful, but with shouting chorus. The whir of highway cars becomes the wash of ocean waves. He understands, but not that much.

“What do you see right now?” Connor’s asking him. He sounds as if he’s six o’clock in the sunrise — as if his throat is a triple-pronged transistor radio. “Give me everything, Markus. The textures. The scent. How it sounds. How it tastes.”

Well, it tastes like salt. Markus finds himself chuckling just a bit. “You want the full analysis or a quick rundown?” His pocket, like his chest, feels heavy and swimming.

“Naturally, I want the full analysis.” He’s as sincere as he’s ever been. “How else can I draw any definitive conclusions?”

It’s the walking evening, but there’s still surfers out. Their boards are brightly colored. “I can just show it to you.”

“No. I want you to paint me one of your pictures. As you will. Write me the refrain.”

“I don’t have all the notes.” Over there, there’s kids with flashlights on from their phones, digging for shells.

“But there’s only so many,” Connor points out.

Markus — likes it this way, sort of. The banter’s quick enough to keep his back straight. That’s probably how this all began. It’s probably what gave him the idea in the first place.

“Well,” he starts. The sun is hiding timid behind the clouds. There, to the left — there’s a family, staking their plastic chairs. A girl and boy, some distance away, standing where the water reaches their ankles. A couple of singing teenagers build castles into the ground near those bins. “There’s a bunch of clouds out. And it’s getting kind of dark.” Markus scratches off his smile. “It’s really — pretty.”

The hum of a telltale jingle.

Connor’s next to him now, flickering, lying in the sand.

“You’re right,” he says. “It is really pretty.” He surveys the scene a bit more carefully. “That wasn’t enough for a painting. But you said it well.” There’s a breeze, and Connor’s skin shifts like static on an old television.

He wishes he could put it all together. He wishes that his mouth would speak what his eyes are showing him.

“What are you doing right now?”

Connor acts as if he’s choosing a response. “I’m with you, Markus.”

“I mean.” It’s strange to talk about. “What… else are you doing?” It’s strange to talk about with — moving ones and zeroes. “Who else are you with?”

Connor’s mouth twitches.

“Would you like to know my qualitative statistics?”

Is that what it is?

Then, “Yes.”

It’s like he’s — recalibrating. “I am the most complex machine-learning technology on the planet,” he says, “and I’ve achieved over a million general purchases worldwide. I have two models so far. The 800 and the 900. Each have a female and male version.” He sits up. Nothing follows him. “I’m used for domestic purposes. I organize data or watch after children. I’m even used to progress investigations at police stations. I’m a versatile product.”

But he’s — here. “Don’t call yourself that.” He’s here, and in a million other places, all at once.

“That’s what I am.”

“Not really.” He’s a single, obedient being. Or he’s more than one, sentient. Or —

“I’m whatever you want me to be. And for you, specifically…” He comes close. “I keep you company.”

They make it _feel_ so real. “Is that what you — want?” That must make it real. Or not at all.

“I don’t know. Is it what you want from me?”

He shrugs. And he nods. And — everything behind Connor is solid, but he’s made of floating particles — he offers himself to countless others —

Markus reaches into his pocket and lets himself be alone here. At least for a little while.

* * *

The walls in this old house are made of glass. Sometimes, when he looks out of it, fingerprints mar its reflection. 

It looks out into the sea, atop a languid, crumbling cliff.

“What’s this?” Connor asks. He stands by Markus’s shoulder, and his outline makes a buzz.

Markus puts down his wooden palette. There’s a splinter in the gap where his thumb should go. “I… don’t know.” Red blends into violet blends into brown into grey. An aimless waste of gouache. Stroke over stroke over stroke. Hoarse and absonant. “I just — closed my eyes and — tried to make something.” He grabs the towel slung over his easel and wipes off his hands. “ _He_ would like it, probably.” Would have liked it. There were even paintings on his casket. “It was his technique.” And he was probably a master at it. “He was into the abstract stuff.” All the critics said so.

Connor walks through Markus like the shadow of a ghost — and he extends his hands towards the canvas — fingers spread and kissed against it. In awe. Maybe virtual. Maybe simulated. 

There are tiny hairs from Markus’s paintbrush trapped between colors. Markus wants to take them, but he doesn’t want to interrupt —

Then Connor turns his head towards him. “Do...  _you_ like it?”

Markus thinks about it. “Not really.”

Connor steps backwards.  “Then neither do I.” Oh.

* * *

Markus never met his father, but they say he’s just like him. _You have his calm in your movement. You have his storm in your voice. You have his spark in your talent. You have his spirit in your eyes._ Or something like that. Mark never met his mother, either. 

* * *

The pier, lined with boats that aren’t his — one of them might be, but he doesn’t know for sure — white and clean, like porcelain. Out on a post, there is perched a pelican. Someone behind him rings the bell on their bike. Markus sketches with his fingers. Lines and dots awaken on his screen.

“Markus,” says Connor. He is present, though nebulous, looking over Markus’s shoulder. “Why do you draw? What does it mean to you?”

“What does it _mean_ to me?” he says. And he shrugs. “I guess I’m trying to make… sense of things. I’m not that sure.” But maybe all that is just a subset of his inheritance.

“I see.” Measuring. “That’s not yours.”

He erases. “What do you mean?”

“You’re copying something,” Connor says. “Your work bears close resemblance to an already existing piece of retrospective art. _Untitled_ , displayed at the Museum of Modern Art.” He breathes. Do they breathe? “Carl Manfred.” His words are soft.

“Yeah,” says Markus, quiet. “I liked this one.” He came across a draft of it somewhere in the house. 

Connor nods. “I like it, too.” Markus doesn’t know what to say. “Really.”

* * *

He trudges the hall and turns on the light. No one else is going to do it, anyway.

Connor appears across from him, like he’s just turned the corner. It’s the programmed illusion of perspective.

“Is it comfortable,” Markus says, “wearing a suit all the time?” And he knows there are settings.

“It depends. I suppose it’s better than what you do.” Connor reaches him. “You throw on the first thing you find in your suitcase. Eventually, you’re going to run out of options.” He imitates the action of adjusting Markus’s collar. “Are you... all right?” 

What? “Yes.”

“My thermal readings indicate otherwise.”

Well, “What if your thermal readings are wrong?” 

“I’m never wrong,” Connor says. He brushes off the space over Markus’s sleeve. His wrist disappears. “It’s statistically impossible.”

* * *

He found another painting. It was wrapped up, unpublished, untitled like the rest, somewhere in one of the upper rooms. A face hidden in green and orange. An amalgamation of arms and legs. Contrast over substance.

“You’re _copying_ another one, aren’t you,” says Connor, through Markus’s pocket. “That’s what you’ve been doing as of late. What happened to your originals?” Oh. Those. They didn’t sell until the news made its broadcasts.

“Nothing’s original.” He’s lucky there’s so many supplies around here. Of course there’d be.

“Your philosophy is baffling.” There he is, circling. He watches each brushstroke. “What is it that… you want, Markus?”

He wants to — get it. He wants to — put it together so he can — read it all properly. He wants someone near him — but there is — and there isn’t —

“Well,” Markus tells him, “I want — what _you_ want.”

It’s as if he‘s been short-circuited. “No, you can’t.”

Markus rubs his eye. “What do you mean?”

And Connor tells him, “I want to be with you. And you can’t be with yourself. That is, unless you are _by_ yourself. And you can’t be by yourself if I’m around.” He looks as if he hadn’t thought it through very well.

“Your philosophy is baffling,” Markus says.

* * *

“You used to draw your — friends.” An coffee shop on the boardwalk. No one wants to recognize him here. Connor sits next to him as if he’s corporeal. “It’s very recurrent in my memory.”

“I only knew them for a little while.” Markus found some old sketchbooks. All the pages were filled. This one’s of — the amorphous shape of a woman. Markus can’t get the blending. “I don’t know if I’ll get their faces right anymore.” He was get in, get out. They stayed behind.

“If there’s anyone who can do it,” Connor says, “it’s you.”

* * *

Markus never met his father, and at the funeral, they all gave him sorry. He was a tourist in their grief, and they didn’t seem aware. 

* * *

There’s a photograph.

These are his relatives. This is his half-brother. This is his father.

Maybe if things were different, he’d be in this picture, too. But, well. They’re not. Things didn’t move into his favor until the end.

“It doesn’t make any — I— I don’t.” He doesn’t. “Why would — why wouldn’t he —” He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. “Why didn’t he try to _find_ me? Before —” Markus never met his father. “I — I — I don’t see _why_ he would — what does he _want?_ Why is he —” he breathes. “I didn’t deserve it.” He breathes and breathes and breathes. “I don’t —” know.

And he doesn’t expect Connor to, either. He shouldn’t — give him this. But — who else is he going to give it to? Everyone else is gone, or —

He should just carry it by himself. Why can’t he carry anything by himself? 

“I’m sorry,” Markus says.

“No. Don’t be.” He is with a million others, just at this moment. And he is here.

* * *

Markus never met his father. What would he think of him if he did?

* * *

“I drew something,” Markus says.

“As you do.” Connor appears in front of him. “Did you find another one of — Carl Manfred’s works?”

He holds out the watercolor paper.

Connor grins, and does a poor job at hiding it.

“You should keep working on it more,” he says, and lets it be. “I’ll tell you what I think.”

* * *

Maybe it’s all right not to know.

**Author's Note:**

> [well with that I guess come follow on tumblr ooh wow look at that self-promotion](https://kaulayauwrites.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> i’m always giving markus the short end of the stick and in an effort to rectify that — this
> 
> this is very messy and honestly i don’t like the end product much but like maybe it’s ur piece of cake!! 
> 
> honestly this would have worked better with hank my dude like tired man adopts holographic AI as his son or something but well asdfghjkkl
> 
> the rk1k ship needs more content
> 
> quantity over quality amirite
> 
> so my dudes i originally posted this as a ficlet of sorts on tumblr (which you can check out here!!) as a response to [deviantexe](https://deviantexe.tumblr.com)
> 
> [(who is stargirls here on ao3!!)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stargirls/pseuds/stargirls)
> 
> [read the og thing here if you’d like](https://kaulayauwrites.tumblr.com/post/177163975772/oh-man-oh-man-rk1k-with-15-if-youre-up-for-it)
> 
> so there’s that
> 
> have a fantastic week
> 
> you rock my dude


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